I am first and foremost an idealist. That has never changed, despite the years of growth I been through since experiencing those miserable days in Texas. The cancer days. Being an idealist can be quite a blessing if harnessed properly. For one, there is always something I can aspire to. Never any thought about where to go, what to do, who to be.
Unfortunately, I’m a rather emotional idealist. Yeah… one of those. The “I’ll die before I give up my integrity” types. Perfect for the military, actually, since that’s what literally happens so often. And the military really capitalizes on peoples’ idealism. No other way to run a military than to pursue an ideal that people are emotionally attached to. I was the one of the military’s best products, and I really would have died for the cause.
At least back then I would have.
Religion capitalizes on idealism, too. I was a well-meaning Mormon if nothing else. Stan and I didn’t often make it to San Antonio to attend the temple (and let’s face it, we went probably twice when we lived in Rexburg, so it wasn’t a huge deal for us) and we attended church at least 75% of the time. But Stan played raunchy and violent video games and I masturbated when he didn’t get me off, so I guess there were a few things that didn’t fit the ideal as far as Mormon perfection was concerned.
However, one thing I’d put in my “I’d die before” category was the idea of a dissolving marriage. There was no way I’d willingly walk away from a person I’d married, especially one that I’d been sealed to for eternity in one of God’s temples. It was as simple as a soldier’s honor code: I’d die first.
I’m not sure everyone takes this ideal as literally as I did. Even the absence of love (which was a growing concern of mine as Stan called me from New Jersey and my feelings of separation from him were increasing) was not enough for me to throw in the towel. And what’s more, my ideals surrounding marriage were not just about what would prevent me from leaving, but about what I would do if I stayed.
To be specific, I felt it my duty and responsibility to support my husband in all of his endeavors. My ideals didn’t extend towards myself in this regard, and I think back and realize that they didn’t because the military’s done. Autonomy is not a necessity in the military ideal; more often than not it’s something to be discouraged — how can you govern a large body of people, train them to act as a cohesive unit with instinctive unity if they’re busy “being themselves?”
So when I thought to myself that I had a duty (and privilege, I often reminded myself) to support my husband in all of his endeavors, I found my own life beginning to strain, to grey, to sort of thin out, if that makes any sense. I’m having a nerd moment right now as I remember Bilbo Baggins tell his nephews that the One Ring made him feel “stretched.” (Pardon to hardcore nerds everywhere if I don’t get that quote exactly right.)
I suppose a person who didn’t adopt the ideals of self-sacrifice so forcefully pushed in our armed forces would see the stretching and thinning and greying as something to be alarmed by. I felt it and figured I was doing it right. After all, self-sacrifice is not only a virtue in the military, it’s a virtue of womanhood in the Mormon church as well. If I felt unsatisfied, that was only my trip into the refiner’s fire. True dedicated marriage was not meant to be continuously enjoyable according to an ideal where life and limb (metaphorical and literal) could or would potentially be sacrificed for the greater good, but the gray began to wear me out after a while.
I became annoyed by my ideals, the constant mantras running through my head about what a soldier’s wife should be, what a celestial wife should be, and what was reasonable to expect when forming oneself to these expectations. I began to resent my ideals, but having no suitable alternative (“I’d die first” sort of leaves the alternative at death, so…), I figured I was one of the particularly stubborn ones that refused to comply out of sheer willfulness. After all, I was the one who got pregnant before I met Stan, who slept with him before we ran away to Vegas, who preferred to fake it and rub one off later when her husband didn’t satisfy, just to keep the peace.
I didn’t fit my ideals very well. I accepted them and gave it my best shot, which sometimes people recognized and sometimes people didn’t. I was profoundly grateful when I was noticed for my efforts, since so much emotional energy went into sustaining the picture of perfection I had made for myself, but from time to time, I noticed that there were a few who were not so emotionally dedicated. I mean, they might have been able to adhere to an ideal with more accuracy, but their heart wasn’t in it. The heart had to be in it for it to be real.
Another one of my ideals: if it doesn’t engage your whole being, it’s not worth it.
Unfortunately, I didn’t really leave any way out of that one. The natural alternative to an action that doesn’t engage your whole being is to stop doing it, but I kept coming up against the “I’ll die first” alternative, which left nothing more for me to do than to make whatever it was I was doing engage my whole being. I figured if I forced it long enough, I would see the cultivation of my labors bear fruit.
That’s how Mom and Dad stayed together. They both adopted the “I’d die first” mentality when it came to their temple marriage and the times they wished they could end it. After 28 years, they had a working and respectful relationship. When times got hard with Stan and I found myself annoyed, I just reminded myself that I only had about 23 more years to go.
But Lord, if it wasn’t exhausting sometimes. And I got the feeling that Stan was one of those who engaged his entire being into some things, but not into me. I made sure I had virtually no life while he was sick with cancer, but when I got sick with pancreatitis, he waited around for me to ask him to do stuff. And just when I felt like I would really get a turn being the one who got all the focus, his father died and I had to turn my attention back to him. The edges of my patience were beginning to fray.
It wasn’t until I got Stan’s last phone call from New Jersey that I realized how dangerous the ground I’d stepped onto had become. I probably should have been happy for him, since he called with a breathless exuberance and declared that we were going to name all of our children after his half-siblings and retire in New Jersey, where our children would participate in the family business of Juan’s karate dojo and how great it was going to be to live near family and maybe he could even get transferred to the small naval base they had in New Jersey before his retirement and…
My brain sort of underwent a spontaneous reboot when he mentioned the kids’ names. First of all, Stan had chosen the first name Phillip and the middle name Juan after his own preferences and his father’s passing. Okay, I understood that since it was the first son and Stan was a Cuban and that sort of thing was important. But Krystal was a name I got lucky on; both of us had liked it. I was certain that it would have been something I didn’t like if Stan had not agreed to Krystal. In the end, he’d just have started calling her whatever he wanted her to be named and I’d have been ignored in the whole process. So already, I felt like our kids’ names were chosen without my consent (and barely with my cooperation — which I gave according to my ideals).
But I had already been fantasizing about some other names for our forthcoming children. Something strong and Scottish to reflect my side of the family. Maybe something Gaelic, since I loved how that language sounded, or Welsh. To think that we’d have another son named Juan Jr (how was that going to work?) and a daughter named Jennie and another one named Lacinda was too much for me to be able to “engage my whole being” in.
And that was just the naming part. I had no desire to return to New Jersey, and not a shred of interest in martial arts. Nor did I want to choose a path for my children based on what their extended family (half- family!) was doing. I didn’t want to settle down, either. I loved the military in part because of its travel. No way did I want to stay in one spot. Especially a spot full of rude, wannabe New Yorkers.
But that part that really threw me, the straw that broke the camel’s back, was that Stan wasn’t asking me about any of these decisions. He’d already made them. As far as he was concerned, they were set in stone and it was time to celebrate the fabulous life ahead with oddly named children. I had been feeling excluded already, but not even being consulted before my kids’ were named was going too far. All of it was going too far.
Dying first started to sound mighty tempting. Either that, or…
I called Mom at 4am that morning, praying that she’d forgive me for waking her up.
“Hello?” came my mother’s groggy voice.
“Hi Mom, it’s Violet. I’m really sorry to call you in the middle of the night like this, but I really need you to talk me off a ledge here.” I paused and took a breath before saying something I never thought I’d ever say in my lifetime. “I’ve had it with my marriage. I can’t stay married to Stan anymore. Not for another second.” I related to Mom what Stan had told me over the phone about the names and the planned out life and how he didn’t even ask me if that’s what I wanted to do.
Mom listened and was quiet for a moment. I could tell she was thinking of something wise and thoughtful to say.
“Every marriage goes through this,” she said. I remembered her having said that when Stan told me he was done at Marcie’s house in New Jersey. “Have you told him what you told me, about not being okay with those things? About not wanting things planned out before he even asked you?”
I sighed. “No, I haven’t said anything to Stan except that that I wanted to talk about it a little more when he got back. It would be disloyal for me to disagree with him on something he wants so much. I mean, he really, really wants all that. How can I say no? It’s not supportive.” Why couldn’t I just want what Stan wanted? The more I tried to live his ideal life, the more I thinned.
“Well, go see your counselor about it,” Mom suggested. I nodded again and told her that it was a good idea. Then I hung up and let her sleep.
It was the only time I ever seriously considered walking out of my marriage. In the morning, Stan would return home and I’d see if I couldn’t change his mind about the names and the planned out life. And commit to working harder. I hoped that he would see how many other areas of his life I supported him in. Simultaneously, I wished that I could just live for myself for once. All of these ideals were suffocating.
But then, I made a promise. I swore I’d die before breaking a promise.
It just wasn’t my time yet.
